trendless

trendless, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to random

> The Japanese government said Tuesday it will cease subsidizing medical expenses for people infected with COVID-19, including no longer fixing the cost of medicines, at the end of March due to a fall in the number of cases.

> With Japan's health care arrangements returning to pre-pandemic status from April, patients will have to pay 10 to 30 percent of the cost of coronavirus treatment drugs. Income levels and age determine how much each person pays.

> Government subsidies for hospitalizations and for medical institutions to reserve beds for coronavirus inpatients will also end.

https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2024/03/be4d6c881db7-japan-govt-to-stop-covid-19-treatment-subsidies-at-end-of-march.html

#CovidIsNotOver

trendless, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to random

Before having kids, I was rarely sick
-- even when it was the height of "flu" "season"; even when regularly hanging out with parent-friends who constantly were; even when my wife was a full-time teacher and regularly brought stuff home.

After having kids, I was sick constantly.

And that was all before the pandemic. I can't. even. imagine. how much worse it is out there, now. And the 'interest' continues to compound.

It's been more than four years since anyone in my now five-member household has been sick -- symptomatically, at least.

I don't miss it one bit.

Would that more parents (et al) were able to experience the Pathogen-Free Lifestyle®. In this era of personal experience above all else, is it the one thing that can break through the LiveWithIt™ propaganda and allow us to begin reining in the suffering and harm?

trendless, 2 months ago to random

Viral infections pose early heart risks

> "From a clinical perspective, our understanding of viral infection of the heart has focused on inflammation, causing problems with the rate or rhythm of the heartbeat… But we have found an acute stage when the virus first infects the heart and before the body's immune response causes inflammation. So even before the tissue is inflamed, the heart is being set up for arrhythmia."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240306203111.htm

trendless, 2 months ago to random

Airflow dynamics scrub classroom air

> research demonstrates that an under-floor air distribution concept combined with a ceiling-distributed exhaust system, which generates local and vertically stretched airflow patterns, can significantly reduce airborne pathogens in classrooms by up to 85 per cent

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240306203120.htm

#CovidIsAirborne

trendless, 3 months ago to random

Did the AMTA (Alberta Motor Transit Authority) just appoint Stephen Harper's brother president and then immediately pivot to trumpeting the success of the hydrogen truck pilot being run for the past year by Nikola and Bison?

🤔🧐

trendless, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to novid

FYI,

Looks like https://chirp.social is shutting down at the end of Feb, at which point @novid will cease to function

#CovidIsNotOver #CovidIsAirborne #Novid

trendless, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to random

It seems like a lack of imagination and outside-the-box thinking is majorly responsible for where we're at currently as a society. Perhaps in part because 'divergent' perspectives have been othered all the way to the edge of the margins in favour of middle-oriented group-think.

trendless, 3 months ago to random

Daisugi – Growing Straight Lumber Without Killing The Tree https://hackaday.com/2024/02/20/daisugi-growing-straight-lumber-without-killing-the-tree/

trendless, 3 months ago to random

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02793-8

> Following the observation that higher circulating levels of metabolites derived from niacin—an essential micronutrient that is fortified in cereals—are associated with a higher risk for cardiovascular events, genetic and preclinical studies established links among niacin-derived metabolites, soluble vascular adhesion molecule 1 levels and leukocyte adhesion to the vascular endothelium.

trendless, 3 months ago to novid

1.8%.. 👀

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.02.22.24303193v1?s=09

> This study investigated the effectiveness of natural infection in preventing reinfection with the JN.1 variant during a large JN.1 wave in Qatar, using a test-negative case-control study design. The overall effectiveness of previous infection in preventing reinfection with JN.1 was estimated at only 1.8% (95% CI: -9.3-12.6%). This effectiveness demonstrated a rapid decline over time since the previous infection, decreasing from 82.4% (95% CI: 40.9-94.7%) within 3 to less than 6 months after the previous infection to 50.9% (95% CI: -11.8-78.7%) in the subsequent 3 months, and further dropping to 18.3% (95% CI: -34.6-56.3%) in the subsequent 3 months. Ultimately, it reached a negligible level after one year. The findings show that the protection of natural infection against reinfection with JN.1 is strong only among those who were infected within the last 6 months, with variants such as XBB*. However, this protection wanes rapidly and is entirely lost one year after the previous infection. The findings support considerable immune evasion by JN.1.

#CovidIsNotOver @novid

trendless, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to random

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1034588

> A gut microbial metabolite called 2-methylbutyrylcarnitine (2MBC) plays a role in exacerbating thrombosis -- the formation of blood clots... The results also revealed that 2MBC is accumulated in individuals with COVID-19, potentially explaining why these patients are at increased risk of thrombosis.

🔗 Cell Metabolism, Huang, Li, He, Dai, Huang, and Shi et al.: “Gut microbial co-metabolite 2-methylbutyrylcarnitine exacerbates thrombosis via binding to and activating integrin a2b1” https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(24)00014-7

trendless, 3 months ago to random

"it can't possibly cause harm, it's such a small amount! 🤪"

https://phys.org/news/2024-02-pesticide-exposure-affect-fish-generations.html

> Fish exposed to some pesticides at extremely low concentrations for a brief period of time can demonstrate lasting behavioral changes, with the impact extending to offspring that were never exposed firsthand, a recent study found.

trendless, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to mecfs

#LongCovid #MECFS questions:

In the quest to help a family member understand their fatigue...

a) What measurements/metrics can be useful to self-track/identify what's causing fatigue? (E.g., O2sat, BP, HR, EKG, BG)

b) What can MDs look for beyond standard 'surface-y' tests that may get at the root cause?

:boostRequest: :comments:

trendless, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to random

Wanna save healthcare? Start wearing a mask and ask that your providers do, too.

Simple as.

trendless, 3 months ago to random

Tell me again how it's iNfLaTiOn?

> Loblaw Companies Ltd. set an all-time high for the second time this week as Canada’s biggest grocer rallied on a fourth-quarter earnings beat and expansion plans.

🔗 Canada's biggest grocer hits all-time high twice in one week https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/canada-s-biggest-grocer-hits-all-time-high-twice-in-one-week-1.2038195

trendless, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to random

For anyone who wants to help test, I'd like to trial using Matrix for a voice chat at some point this weekend. If you've got an account on #ZeroesCA, you can get on https://talk.zeroes.ca without much friction. For folks elsewhere, all you need is a Matrix account on a federated server.

#CovidIsNotOver

trendless, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to random

#StillCoviding2024

trendless, 3 months ago to random

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-54613-9

> We enrolled 33 post-COVID patients, all self-reporting cognitive difficulties, and a matched control group (N = 27) for cognitive and psychological assessments. Our findings revealed significant attention deficits in post-COVID patients across both neuropsychological measurements and experimental cognitive tasks, evidencing reduced performance in tasks involving interference resolution and selective and sustained attention. Mild executive function and naming impairments also emerged from the neuropsychological assessment. Notably, 61% of patients reported significant prospective memory failures in daily life, aligning with our recruitment focus. Furthermore, our patient group showed significant alterations in the psycho-affective domain, indicating a complex interplay between cognitive and psychological factors, which could point to a non-cognitive determinant of subjectively experienced cognitive changes following COVID-19.

trendless, 3 months ago to random

If you've been waiting for one...

trendless, 3 months ago to random

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-sprinkle-of-gold-dust-could-help-reverse-symptoms-of-parkinsons-disease

> Scientists are investigating whether an oral drug sprinkled with gold nanoparticles could one day treat neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis.

🔗 Evidence of brain target engagement in Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis by the investigational nanomedicine, CNM-Au8, in the REPAIR phase 2 clinical trials https://jnanobiotechnology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12951-023-02236-z

trendless, 3 months ago to novid

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi9379

> Patients with Long Covid symptoms produce an antiviral protein called interferon-γ persistently until their symptoms resolve.

Abstract: after acute infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), a proportion of patients experience persistent symptoms beyond 12 weeks, termed Long Covid. Understanding the mechanisms that cause this debilitating disease and identifying biomarkers for diagnostic, therapeutic, and monitoring purposes are urgently required. We detected persistently high levels of interferon-γ (IFN-γ) from peripheral blood mononuclear cells of patients with Long Covid using highly sensitive FluoroSpot assays. This IFN-γ release was seen in the absence of ex vivo peptide stimulation and remains persistently elevated in patients with Long Covid, unlike the resolution seen in patients recovering from acute SARS-CoV-2 infection. The IFN-γ release was CD8+ T cell–mediated and dependent on antigen presentation by CD14+ cells. Longitudinal follow-up of our study cohort showed that symptom improvement and resolution correlated with a decrease in IFN-γ production to baseline levels. Our study highlights a potential mechanism underlying Long Covid, enabling the search for biomarkers and therapeutics in patients with Long Covid.

#LongCovid @novid

trendless, 3 months ago to random

"Gradually, then suddenly"

trendless, 3 months ago to random

Do cancer patients hospitalized in BC get tested for scv2 if/when they develop a URI?

trendless, 3 months ago to random

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.02.11.24302636v1

> To maximize our chances of identifying the underpinnings of this illness, we have focused on 121 of the most severe cases from >1000 patients screened in specialized clinics in Sweden and Belgium. We restricted this study to subjects with objective measures of organ damage or dysfunction, >3 months following a verified, but mild-to-moderate SARS-CoV-2 infection. By performing systems-level immunological testing and comparisons to controls fully convalescent following a similar mild/moderate COVID-19 episode, we identify elevated serological responses to SARS-CoV-2 in severe Long COVID suggestive of chronic antigen stimulation. Persistent viral reservoirs have been proposed in Long COVID and using multiple orthogonal methods for detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA and protein in plasma we identify a subset of patients with detectable antigens, but with minimal overlap across assays, and no correlation to symptoms or immune measurements. Elevated serologic responses to SARS-CoV-2 on the other hand were inversely correlated with clonally expanded memory CD8+ T cells, indicating that restrained clonal expansion enables viral persistence, chronic antigen exposure and elevated IgG responses, even if antigen-detection in blood is not universally possible.

trendless, 3 months ago to random

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41574-023-00946-w

> COVID-19 has been linked to an increase in thyroid dysfunction among current and past patients. This Review discusses and evaluates the evidence for COVID-19 causing thyroid dysfunction, including after COVID-19 vaccination and during long COVID.

> The prevalence of abnormal thyroid function is around 15% in patients with COVID-19 and most commonly presents as non-thyroidal illness syndrome.

> SARS-CoV-2 can affect the thyroid directly or indirectly, possibly resulting in subacute thyroiditis and autoimmune thyroid disorders.

> Patients with pre-existing thyroid dysfunction do not appear to be at higher risk of adverse outcomes related to SARS-CoV-2 infection than members of the general population.

> Follow-up studies of survivors of COVID-19 in the past 2 years show no major long-term sequelae from SARS-CoV-2 infection on the thyroid.

> COVID-19 vaccination might be associated with subacute thyroiditis and Graves disease, although this is very uncommon, and COVID-19 vaccination is otherwise not associated with major changes in thyroid function and autoimmunity.

> Patients with pre-existing thyroid dysfunction can safely receive COVID-19 vaccination.

#CovidIsNotOver